Sunday, Sweet Sunday

In Flower Drum Song, a number I liked was "Sunday."
"Sunday, sweet Sunday,
With nothing to do,
Lazy and lovely,
My one day with you.
...
While all the funny papers lie or fly around the place
I will try my kisses on your funny face."
(I especially liked those lyrics for some reason.)

As I write, a musical by a duo other than Rodgers and Hammerstein, namely Lerner and Loewe, is on Turner Classic Movies. It's the big one, My Fair Lady. My brother Bill loved Alf Doolittle, as played by Stanley Holloway. He got to see Stanley live at the Schubert in Chicago in the fifties and was thrilled with his numbers "I'm Gettin' Married in the Mornin'" and "With a Little Bit o' Luck." Bill especially liked the latter because of the good-natured rascality Alfie embraces, in the tradition of his namesake as played by Michael Caine in the movie of that name, and of Andy Capp, the cartoon character (what I didn't like about Andy was that he was mean to his wife, but...). Bill loved a rogue. So do I. Have a good Sunday.

Footnote: Probably more movie trivia than you wanted to know: I wondered if "Freddie," played by Jeremy Brett in My Fair Lady, did his own singing. (I knew long ago that Marni Nixon dubbed the sainted Audrey Hepburn's songs whereas Julie Andrews, who sang quite well and who had played Eliza on Broadway, was aced out of the movie part by Audrey for petty reasons).

On Bill Shirley: Singer and actor who appeared in second-string Republic Pictures musicals during the wartime 40s. His career went nowhere and he became a better behind-the-scenes singing double.

Best remembered for providing Prince Phillip's singing voice in the animated classic "Sleeping Beauty," Bill also sang Freddy Eynsford-Hill's vocals ("On the Street Where You Live") in the film version of "My Fair Lady." Actor Jeremy Brett, who played the role of Freddy in the film, long claimed that he himself sang the role but that Bill merely "sweetened the high tones." Brett finally admitted years later in the 1994 documentary "More Loverly Than Ever: The Making of My Fair Lady Then & Now" that Bill indeed supplied the singing voice.

Born in Indianapolis, Indiana, Bill attended Shortridge High School. (Yay, Shortridge! A high school that published a daily newspaper! Alma mater of Kurt Vonnegut, Dan Wakefield, and Dick Lugar, among others.) Buried in Crown Hill Cemetery, Indianapolis.

My comment on Bill's rendition of "On the Street Where You Live": stirring, almost to tears. (It's that time of year.) When I was a pimply-faced adolescent, I liked the single-hit version by Vic Damone, the guy who sounded a lot like Sinatra but was a nice guy, unlike Sinatra. (I forgive Sinatra his sins: somebitch could sing.) I imitated Vic's version while I sang it loud as Freddy, while I was alone, out on the deserted streets of little old Forlorn River (freezing in my suede jacket with no hat on my flat-topped head).

On Jeremy Brett: played Sherlock Holmes in a TV series on, I seem to recall, HBO, when I had that luxury. I thought he was the quintessential Holmes, equal to Basil Rathbone. He was a decent chap, born and died in England, schooled at Eton, did Shakespeare. Concerned that kids who watched the TV series might be misled by Holmes' coke habit, got the writers to have Sherlock kick in one episode. And according to IMDB, "he was dubbed [as I said above], in spite of the fact that his singing was actually remarkably good."